Johannes Spors

[Mboto Gorge]

2 minutes ago, saintant said:

His role is to sign players that SR may make a profit on. He's not there to build a side that could mount a promotion challenge. It's all about turning a profit.

The only thing this bloke is turning currently, is my stomach. 

[aintforever]

Face it, this guy’s a complete fraud. We can change managers, sorry head coaches, until the cows come home it won’t make any difference as long as this idiot and those above him are still pulling the strings.

[pimpin4rizeal]

1 hour ago, Mboto Gorge said:

Let’s be honest, he’s made some reasonable signings of a couple of skill full wide men  and a handy CM, but other than that, he’s signed a raw CB who wasn’t what we needed at this particular time - we needed an experienced leader shithouse at the back to organise and take control, and he’s signed an absolutely horrific striker, the worst in the clubs history when all things considered, when there was a huge priority for this part of the recruitment to be successful, which wasn’t actually hard given our budget and the standard of the league. Yet he somehow fucked that up big time. He’s also wasted time signing a ridiculous 3rd choice keeper and putting no pressure on our already terrible first choice keeper, and has only recently attempted to sort this, halfway through the season once our terrible first choice keeper has shown himself to be - terrible.
 

He’s also presided over the biggest cluster fuck of 2 managerial appointments, even by Sport Republics standards. Combine that with his cowardly behaviour and only wanting to speak when things are going well, and I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s another egotistical and clueless loser who thinks he’s a lot better and cleverer than he actually is. Another utterly loathsome character to add to the list that are running this club

Yeah to be honest I think he did a good job  with the fernandes and dibling money we brought in scienza fellows azaz and  jander who are all decent signings and tbh between that bunch probably offer more then Tyler and fernandes Would have . but we still failed in the priority positions with the gk and striker situations it’s actually scandalous that after four seasons we are still using bazunu as first choice keeper it’s been blatantly obvious he’s shit since at least last championship campaign 

the managerial choices if fully on him also both look terrible but it still feels like there’s some previous sports republic influence here I’m not fully confident everything is down to spors

[Badger]

23 hours ago, Miltonaggro said:

Paul Tisdale sacked as DOFO at Celtic today. Would probably trust him to do a much better and engaged job at SFC than Spors. 

Interesting that you mention Tisdale as  when it was first announced (Dec 23/Jan 24 was it?) that we’d be appointing a new DoF I wondered if he’d be a good fit. By reputation he did a great job at Exeter involved in both the football * and business side of the club.

Obviously Saints would be a massive step up, but I’d certainly reached a stage where I’d be happy with someone grounded who might stay around and build things. This seemed a better option than some fucker with their head in the clouds with a “philosophy” on the game, dreaming of Champions League, but not cutting it in the Championship.

I wasn’t initially aware at the time that he’d gone to Celtic but having read about his time there I wouldn’t be so keen a year on. This was the bloke widely credited with appointing Nancy, their worst manager ever ( and overseeing a dismal transfer window there). 
 

*Also worth remembering that his success at Exeter was working with a DoF in Steve Perryman ( but he was a former player, and not a spreadsheet nerd) 

Edited January 6 by Badger

[SuperSAINT]

1 minute ago, Badger said:

Interesting that you mention Tisdale as  when it was first announced (Dec 23/Jan 24 was it?) that we’d be appointing a new DoF I wondered if he’d be a good fit. By reputation he did a great job at Exeter involved in both the football and business side of the club.

Obviously Saints would be a massive step up, but I’d certainly reached a stage where I’d be happy with someone grounded who might stay around and build things. This seemed a better option than some fucker with their head in the clouds with a “philosophy” on the game, dreaming of Champions League, but not cutting it in the Championship.

I wasn’t initially aware at the time that he’d gone to Celtic but having read about his time there I wouldn’t be so keen a year on. This was the bloke widely credited with appointing Nancy, their worst manager ever ( and overseeing a dismal transfer window there). 

Big fan of his Exeter stint and I had no clue he was at Celtic. 

Chris Sutton said the Celtic fans called him Dr Do-little. 

[Badger]

1 minute ago, SuperSAINT said:

Big fan of his Exeter stint and I had no clue he was at Celtic. 

Chris Sutton said the Celtic fans called him Dr Do-little. 

He described himself as a ‘football doctor’ when he went there, although little sign of any achievement in his time there.

I had a look at a Celtic forum a few weeks ago, and there were several criticisms. Poor transfer activity where he was supposed to be identifying targets ( although this might be outside of his control), but also lack of any communication and any interviews to explain what the club were doing. Sound familiar?? 

[Badger]

Final comment on Tisdale, taken from a BBC article by Tom English (who was equally damning of Russell Martin, good read):

 

Quote

Nancy's appointment was one of the greatest blunders Celtic have made in their history. A relative rookie on a bad run with Columbus Crew - they finished seventh in Major League Soccer - it was a punt based on little more than the hipster vibes of Paul Tisdale, the now former head of football operations.

Tisdale didn't open his mouth to fans or media in his brief time in a powerful position at Celtic Park, but he did a whole lot of damage. If Nancy ranks extremely highly in the club's most calamitous calls then Tisdale is on a par or, perhaps even, slightly ahead of him given that it was the self-styled 'Doctor Football' who championed Nancy to the club's board.

 

 

[bugenhagen]

8 minutes ago, Badger said:

Final comment on Tisdale, taken from a BBC article by Tom English (who was equally damning of Russell Martin, good read):

Nancy's appointment was one of the greatest blunders Celtic have made in their history. A relative rookie on a bad run with Columbus Crew - they finished seventh in Major League Soccer - it was a punt based on little more than the hipster vibes of Paul Tisdale, the now former head of football operations.

Tisdale didn't open his mouth to fans or media in his brief time in a powerful position at Celtic Park, but he did a whole lot of damage. If Nancy ranks extremely highly in the club's most calamitous calls then Tisdale is on a par or, perhaps even, slightly ahead of him given that it was the self-styled 'Doctor Football' who championed Nancy to the club's board.

 

 

He might be a better fit than I first thought...

We do love us some hipster vibes here at Southampton SR!

[SuperSAINT]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

He described himself as a ‘football doctor’ when he went there, although little sign of any achievement in his time there.

Shoud’ve prescribed something more effective than Nancy.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

3 hours ago, bugenhagen said:

He might be a better fit than I first thought...

We do love us some hipster vibes here at Southampton SR!

We do. We love a project signing of a sacked manager too, so Tisdale could bring Nancy with him, if Tonda's trajectory continues.

More 3 at the back. At least Celtic started creating lots of chances. Probably go the same way as Champ opponents cut off the spaces.

As for.Celtic:

Massive fan base, that doesn't translate into either European money through Champions League runs or from TV money.

So, they need to get a lot of their transfers spot on, with a limited budget (Rangers just tried a wholesale squad overhaul for 40 million)

We were able to use them as a farm club for a while, which shows the daft financial imbalance.

They are having to save pennies to pay out for their connections to the boy's club, and the abuses there.

 

[Mboto Gorge]

Any comments from our esteemed sporting director on the latest performances? Surely he’s due to give us another update? His pick as manager is doing a cracking job - wonder if he will update us on the goals for the season now we’ve not won in 7 games. 

[Badger]

9 minutes ago, Mboto Gorge said:

Any comments from our esteemed sporting director on the latest performances? Surely he’s due to give us another update? His pick as manager is doing a cracking job - wonder if he will update us on the goals for the season now we’ve not won in 7 games. 

Yes, I think his interview will follow shortly after the club reveal the Five Pledges. 

[Gloucester Saint]

Ta ra Johannes, the main culpability is Solak and Ankerson, but you’ve appointed two-sub Branfoot, Pellegrino, Selles and Nathan Jones computer game adolescents to a man’s job. Time to go as well.

[AlexLaw76]

He will be working in Germany for the start of next season.

Another absolutely shit appointment by SR.

 

[S-Clarke]

He'll slide out of the door in the next few months and end up back in Germany, guaranteed. I doubt we'll hear from him again. Seems quite a wimpy type himself.

He made some good picks, but generally his job is to build a squad that is balanced and fits the objective. Our squad is an absolute bloated unbalanced mess, so that's on him.

'The art of squad building becomes clear once the window is closed' - Yeah, it's become clear that you've fucked it.

[Mboto Gorge]

8 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

He'll slide out of the door in the next few months and end up back in Germany, guaranteed. I doubt we'll hear from him again. Seems quite a wimpy type himself.

He made some good picks, but generally his job is to build a squad that is balanced and fits the objective. Our squad is an absolute bloated unbalanced mess, so that's on him.

'The art of squad building becomes clear once the window is closed' - Yeah, it's become clear that you've fucked it.

This is exactly why he made the comment “if we don’t get promoted this season we will try again next” - because he knows it won’t be his issue and mess to sort , because he will have fucked off by then. Could bet your house on it

[pimpin4rizeal]

Coming back to this I think he’s actually done quite a great job with some of the recruitment scienza,Azaz,peretz, and jander have all been cracking signings. Also whilst I still think it was a hell of a gamble Tonda is looking like a decent appointment too . Overall I think spors is doing a better job then those before him 

[S-Clarke]

The recruitment definitely has had an uptick this year compared to previous years, and it seems as if maybe he does know what is required and has an eye for things.

Tonda being a fine example - no one would have done that, and a lot of us were against it, but he stood by his decision. 

I think January fixed some of the gaps from the summer (Striker/GK), but the likes of Leo, Jander, Azaz, Peretz, Larin have been sound additions and good 'left field' finds, exactly the sort of scouting we've been missing.

[pimpin4rizeal]

Think we really need this guy to stick around and finally get stability on that front . Him being here next season could  also be a massive factor with tonda too imo , you could argue tonda  kinda owes him after the faith spors showed in him 

Edited yesterday at 16:16 by pimpin4rizeal

[Patrick Bateman]

I think I'd agree that whatever league we're in next season, we need some stability now and this group now seems like the winning formula all round.

How quickly things change in football ... 

(Caveat: As long as whoever did the January transfer window can do this coming summer and not the person who did last summer's transfer window ... )

[SW5 SAINT]

15 hours ago, Patrick Bateman said:

I think I'd agree that whatever league we're in next season, we need some stability now and this group now seems like the winning formula all round.

How quickly things change in football ... 

(Caveat: As long as whoever did the January transfer window can do this coming summer and not the person who did last summer's transfer window ... )

Last summer’s transfer window brought in Scienza, Azaz, Jander not much wrong with that….and and we got 40m for Dibling…..

Edited 12 hours ago by SW5 SAINT
Edit

[Patrick Bateman]

Just now, SW5 SAINT said:

Last summer’s transfer window brought in Scienza, Azaz, Jander not much wrong with that….

Good point ... I was focusing on the one before ... BBD, Cornet, and then mixing in Damian Downs and loaning out Bree. It's all a horrible blur 😂

[Willo of Whiteley]

Signings, fine.

But he still hired Will Still.

Very much reserving judgement.

[sockeye]

3 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

Signings, fine.

But he still hired Will Still.

Very much reserving judgement.

I do wonder what went on there. Still was managing in Ligue 1, and doing pretty okay, so you would think we would be alright with him, at least a top-half finish, and Spors must have thought that too. But the side crumpled under him, and it seems it was due to poor communication. There was also that story that went out about the mystery Championship club whose players didn't like their manager. Was it a personality clash? Was Still under personal stress? Was his career being carried by his brothers? He'd managed four clubs before hand so I don't think you can say he just got lucky at Lens and the players were able to take care of themselves whilst mostly ignoring his input. Would like to know just what was going on at Staplewood over those four or so months. Maybe an ex-player will eek it out on a podcast one day.

[pimpin4rizeal]

1 hour ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

Signings, fine.

But he still hired Will Still.

Very much reserving judgement.

Don’t think any of us would  have chosen tonda over will still at the start of the season, don’t get me wrong there  still sone bad mistakes like not sorting out the goalkeeper or striker positions which where costly, I wonder if some of this stuff was due to bad advice from people at the club longer ?  Spors saying that building squad being like a art looked laughable at one point but he’s put everything right by the end of the January window at least and now we are flying .

last thing we need right now imo is spors Fucking off to juve or some other big club and taking the likes of tonda with him we haven’t had any stability with the likes of shields and Wilcox jumping ship and spors could be very integral in keeping tonda and sone of the players signed under him 

His knowledge of the German market in particular has been excellent  quite exciting to see how his recruitment would be if we get promoted 

Edited 21 hours ago by pimpin4rizeal

[Sheaf Saint]

8 hours ago, SW5 SAINT said:

Last summer’s transfer window brought in Scienza, Azaz, Jander not much wrong with that….

Damion Downs says hi 👋

[Willo of Whiteley]

I would hope that he doesn’t leave, I doubt he will, but you never know peoples true intentions with these things.

To some extent I’d say it says more about Sport Republic than the individual given the turnover of personnel in various positions.

I do think that Spors and Eckhart come as a package, if one stays I think the other will etc.

[UpweySaint]

6 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Damion Downs says hi 👋

Downs looks ridiculous in hindsight. At the time I felt the fee was too much but in principle a physical striker with some pace who has scored goals in Bundesliga 2 and had already been called up by a national side didn’t seem like a stupid move - Ageymang at Derby was clearly the better bet. But yeah clearly Downs goes down as a big miss - it happens. His confidence must be rock bottom. Hopefully somebody in Germany has seen enough in his last spell to fancy taking a punt on potential and we can recoup a fee.

[AlexLaw76]

1 minute ago, UpweySaint said:

Downs looks ridiculous in hindsight. At the time I felt the fee was too much but in principle a physical striker with some pace who has scored goals in Bundesliga 2 and had already been called up by a national side didn’t seem like a stupid move - Ageymang at Derby was clearly the better bet. But yeah clearly Downs goes down as a big miss - it happens. His confidence must be rock bottom. Hopefully somebody in Germany has seen enough in his last spell to fancy taking a punt on potential and we can recoup a fee.

Downs is an appalling signing!

Jelert was pretty pointless (but is a loan, I guess). Quashie meh, but relatively low fee. Azaz, Scienza, Peretz, Larin and Jander - excellent.

Letting Bree go out on loan was remarkably bad as was backing Bazunu.

[saintant]

17 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Downs is an appalling signing!

Jelert was pretty pointless (but is a loan, I guess). Quashie meh, but relatively low fee. Azaz, Scienza, Peretz, Larin and Jander - excellent.

Letting Bree go out on loan was remarkably bad as was backing Bazunu.

Quarshie is 21 so has time on his side. Ok, he may not make it but now is not the time to judge him. Let's see how he develops. 

[OldNick]

15 hours ago, sockeye said:

I do wonder what went on there. Still was managing in Ligue 1, and doing pretty okay, so you would think we would be alright with him, at least a top-half finish, and Spors must have thought that too. But the side crumpled under him, and it seems it was due to poor communication. There was also that story that went out about the mystery Championship club whose players didn't like their manager. Was it a personality clash? Was Still under personal stress? Was his career being carried by his brothers? He'd managed four clubs before hand so I don't think you can say he just got lucky at Lens and the players were able to take care of themselves whilst mostly ignoring his input. Would like to know just what was going on at Staplewood over those four or so months. Maybe an ex-player will eek it out on a podcast one day.

Im glad we have Tond but to be fair to Still if he had a fit Ross and Larin plus Peretz his fate may have been different. When Ross was fit for a couple of games under him the side looked pretty decent as Ross made an impact.

[UpweySaint]

1 hour ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Downs is an appalling signing!

Jelert was pretty pointless (but is a loan, I guess). Quashie meh, but relatively low fee. Azaz, Scienza, Peretz, Larin and Jander - excellent.

Letting Bree go out on loan was remarkably bad as was backing Bazunu.

Jelert is a tricky one. Plenty of pedigree, can play both sides, suits a side likely to dominate the ball but the major flaw is the lack of physicality. I don’t mind that type of risk on a loan. 

Quarshie I’m okay with. As you say cheap - relatively speaking - and I think he has potential.

Bree is odd. He had been so so for us in the past and I think most were fairly ambivalent about him staying or going - myself included. He’s looked top since he came back but I don’t think that was a given. 

Baz. Yeah clusterfuck. Happy to eat humble pie as I thought he could kick on. Relying on him was a mistake. Peretz was likely not available/realistic in the summer but you have to think there were other options.

[Saint Garrett]

Noone ever gets all transfers right, lets not kid ourselves.

Incomings:
Azaz - Jury was out for me, but been hugely important to us since Jan. Now looking like a really good signing.
Scienza - Class
Fellows - Like him but expected more - not bad business and still very young
Jander - Class
Downs - Shocker - clearly wasnt signed for this season, but looks a bad one. Expect him to be sold or back out on loan next season
Quarshie - Time will tell. don't think he was signed as first choice and isn't
Roeslev - Poor signing even when he was fit
Peretz - Class
Jelert - Fine - though not a good fit for our system despite looking like he has something
Larin - Class
Long-  Backup
Romeu - Backup & probably had a positive impact in the dressing room despite his lack of playing time

Departures:
Matty Fernandes - Think we should have got a bit more for him but still good money
Dibling - Money looking very good right now
Sulemana / Onuachu / Arma / Bednarek / ABK / Edwards - can't argue with fees we received.
Ramsdale - big money for a loan...

Sam Amo / Juan - Probably should have got more for them both, but not the end of the world.

All in all I think you're giving him a 8 or 9/10 for the last few windows...

 

[Sheaf Saint]

1 hour ago, OldNick said:

Im glad we have Tond but to be fair to Still if he had a fit Ross and Larin plus Peretz his fate may have been different. When Ross was fit for a couple of games under him the side looked pretty decent as Ross made an impact.

You say that, but I was at Bramall Lane when Ross scored that screamer to put us 2-1 up, and the way we fell apart after taking the lead was deeply concerning. That was not a well coached and organised team, it was just 11 men desperately wanting to hold a lead. We were very lucky to come away from that with the 3 points. 

[Turkish]

3 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

You say that, but I was at Bramall Lane when Ross scored that screamer to put us 2-1 up, and the way we fell apart after taking the lead was deeply concerning. That was not a well coached and organised team, it was just 11 men desperately wanting to hold a lead. We were very lucky to come away from that with the 3 points. 

This was our team that night. Scienza the leagues best player unused sub, Fellows was the best player on the pitch first half was subbed off at half time. Azaz also subbed at half time. Probably our 3 worst centre backs starting with THB on the bench, No Downes, on the bench came on after 75 mins. His only other win as saints manager was a lucky last minute winner on the first day. You can see why we did so Baldy